Support Josh's Fight Against Crohn's

Hi, my name is Carla Doyle. I am starting a Go-FundMe page for my daughter, Amanda, and her husband Josh. He has Crohn's and has been going through a lot these last couple of months. I will attach a letter from Amanda on everything that Josh has been and is going through now. We want to raise some funds to help them with bills. We are unsure how long Josh will be off work or in the hospital. He's been off work since December 3rd and in the hospital since January 2nd. Please help us take some financial burden off of them. Thank you!

As many of you know Josh was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease back in 2004. Later in October he started not feeling well. He was thinking he was getting a cold. He would come home from work and have a fever, really tired. Eventually, he would take some ibuprofen to help with the fever cause Tylenol wasn’t cutting it. Come November things continued and he started having pain in his stomach. Fever, tired, pain overall just run down. He had some blood tests and stool sample done on November 16.

The test showed high levels of inflammation. He saw his nurse practitioner on November 18 for his normal med checkup. She was very concerned and said if he didn’t have an appt with his gastrologist on the 19th she would have sent him to the hospital. He lost about 40 pounds and wasn’t looking the greatest.

November 19, he goes to his appointment with the gastrologist. Who didn’t seem to concerned. He started him on steroids and wanted to do a stat CT scan. Josh went straight to the hospital for the CT scan. Never heard any results from the CT scan. He had an appointment scheduled again with the doctor on December 17. Also, a scope was scheduled for December 24. The doctor’s office called and wanted to cancel his appointment on the 17th and schedule one for after the scope. He told them no because he wanted to go over the CT scan since no one ever called.

November 25, he scheduled an appt with OSU, January 27th is when they could get him in.

He went to his appt on the 17th and got no answers. Just was told to get the scope done and keep his appointment with OSU. Which again wasn’t until January 27th. He had his scope done on the 24th and the doctor that performed it said there was a lot of inflammation and he recommended an MRI because he also saw fistulas.

Never received a call back from his doctor about the results or next steps. December 30th, he had gotten really bad. Was so weak, took all of his energy to get up and go to the bathroom. Couldn’t stand to take a shower. At that point, we knew it was time for him to go to the hospital. Took him down to Blanchard Valley.

Of course, the hospital was super busy that night. We were in the waiting room forever. Had to ask when he was going to be able to go back to get a room because he was in a lot of pain and needed to lay down. They eventually came out to the waiting room drew blood and gave him some pain meds. Finally, later they got him in a room. Was giving him pain meds to get the pain under control. Scheduled another CT scan. We were at the hospital for 11 hours.

Did call his doctor to get paperwork filled out for FMLA. The doctor put him off from December 3 through January 6.

Never got the results from the CT scan. No calls from his doctor’s office. NOTHING.

January 2, I called OSU and told them that he had an appointment for the 27th but couldn’t wait that long and needed to be seen ASAP. They found an appointment that day for 3:30 and asked if that would work. I said we will make it work. I drove him down there. Printed out all of the bloodwork, CT scans, and scope results from his chart and took them down with us. The nurse practitioner looked at him and said no one has done anything for you? At this point, he was down almost 50 pounds. She said I want you to go to the ER on the main campus. She said something needed to be done and now.

Took him to the ER. They admitted him! Since the 2nd things have been crazy. Bloodwork, CT scans, x-rays, and more. They found some nodules on his lungs. With him being immune-compromised and the meds he’s on they were testing him for TB. He had to go into isolation. After several tests and several days, they determined it wasn’t TB. But were testing him for a million other things. He tested positive for PJP. Eventually, they got him out of isolation. He had surgery on his birthday (Jan 14th). They did a permanent ileostomy. The surgeon said there was a lot of inflammation and they had to take out a good portion of his small intestine. He estimates that he has about 150 cms left. After surgery, he went to a regular room, and the next day into the ICU. His hemoglobin was low and was having issues with his oxygen levels. They wanted to keep a better eye on him. He was hooked up to everything. Before surgery, he had a blood transfusion and he had more after. On Saturday the 18th the nurses got him out of bed and into a wheelchair so that he could go out to the waiting room to see the girls. They weren’t allowed in the ICU since they weren’t 16. Dumb!!! But that was a turning point. On Sunday they removed the foley, NG tube, lowered his oxygen to 2L from 6L, and started him on a liquid diet. Later that night they removed the arterial line. He was on the road to getting out of ICU.

Sunday night they moved him to a regular room again. He was doing so good. Monday, they allowed him to move to a soft diet. He said he ate some eggs and cornbread or something like it. They got him up and had him walk a bit. Later on, he noticed blood coming out of his stoma. He had blood and clots. So, they started infusions. Moved him to a floor that was a step down from ICU. Eventually, they again moved him into ICU Monday night. He had 10 units of blood, 5 units of platelets, and 3 units of plasma on Monday. On Tuesday, I went down there to spend time with him. They did a scope to see where the blood was coming from. They saw an ulcer but weren't sure that it wasn’t bleeding but clamped it anyways. They were trying to get to the point where his intestines were stapled to see if that was where it was. It was too far and Josh was uncomfortable so they stopped. Later they took him down to CT and wanted to give him contrast to see if they could see it. They think that it was bleeding too fast that imaging couldn’t pick it up. They continued to monitor him and give him blood.

Tuesday night during rounds they were talking about one of his blood tests came back with high levels of gasses and it was 2 in a row. They wanted to incubate him before it became an emergency incubation. They also said they could try to do a mask and they could wait an hour to see if it helps. In the meantime, they took blood from his arterial vein. That test came back where everything was fine and they didn’t need to do anything. Praise God!!! The bleeding finally stopped late Wednesday. He finally is starting to feel better. As of Thursday, the 23rd he is going to be moved out of ICU to a regular room again. There are a million other things that have happened but my head is a mess and just getting this down was hard. To say things have been extremely difficult and touch and go is an understatement. This has taken a toll on us emotionally, physically, and financially. Thank you, everyone, for reading and all of the prayers.

Love

The Tolles